A View from the Top

When we arrived in South Africa with our suitcases at the end of last September, we started in Grabouw – following riots, rampant HIV, TB and youth unemployment. Grabouw was challenging, striking and cold, high up in the mountains. But we let our heart get attached to Grabouw.

We then headed to the other side of the Cape and found ourselves in Paarl. A town that spreads down the valley supporting much agricultural activity. Since early October we have lifted up our heads to Paarl Mountain in quiet awe.  This mountain is made of granite and is, we are told, the second largest rock of its kind after Ayers Rock in Australia. 

We have noticed it, looked at it, studied it, tried to draw it. It was months before we began to find a way to climb it. Eventually in early April we found a route and, then found a circuit that took us half way up the mountain and down again. It was a challenging uphill climb of very steep gradients that had our heart pumping hard. We got used to our lovely circuit. It became our friend. It became comfortable, manageable. Early one particular morning we tried to hit up the higher trail, but after a while we turned back, a little defeated by the challenge of it. 

But last week we did it. We went to the very top and were breathless not just with the climb but also with the views and the perspectives. We could see the whole of Paarl Valley, the mountains that surround on every side and a clear view as far as Table Mountain in Cape Town. The Paarl Mountain that has eyed us up every day and kept us in our place, was finally put in its place, at least in our mind. We now look up and wink at it each day. “We did you”

Paarl mts

 Potential is a word I love. 

In every programme we run we talk about potential. Even last Saturday morning in a gangster controlled, 80% drug abuse rate amongst youth kind of a community, we talked to the youth about potential. Human potential is the great unexplored ocean. There is so much more to each of us than we even begin to realise. 

The thing I also realised again this week is that it doesn’t matter how much potential a person has, it’s still a mountain climb to liberate that potential.  I can look at my potential but stay down in comfortable valley, I can venture up a few paths on the lower slopes and feel good about it, I can even make a big climb into my potential, go further than I’d imagined but then for fear or whatever reason, I can make my new ‘stretch zone’ in to the new ‘comfort zone’.  

Fulfilling my potential is always going to be a mountain climb. Stretching and risking and some hard walking to find the rewarding vistas.

And I’m still left wondering what makes a person decide to climb their mountain?  Do enjoy with me Erwin McManus TED talk on how everyone is an artist and we are all works of art. 

‪https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsJBGxmFQkU …

It’s end of term here. As I sit here in this beautiful Western Cape morning in the middle of what South Africans call winter, but we call either ‘hot summer’ or ‘mild autumn’ I am reflecting on the fact that  we are entering our final week of work here. On Saturday we head up the Wild Coast for 2 weeks holidays before returning to the UK, but by Friday this week our work is completed. When I say ‘complete’ of course I’m lying. The work is nowhere near complete. We’ve barely started. But this chapter for Jane & I is complete.

Two years ago about this month, after running a pivotal Leadership for Hope event for 400 people in Nairobi we were confronted by the reality that the only way we could ever truly grow this work to its potential was to come and live in Africa in order to establish working ‘hubs’ for both East and South Africa. So for the past two years we were either planning or actually living in Kenya and South Africa, Nairobi and the Western Cape. – roughly half the time in each.  Its been a mountain climb with extraordinary views, totally challenging ascents and lots of courage and risks along the way.  

As we left a restaurant this lunchtime a young lady who I didn’t recognize behind the bar, held up her pen so I  could see it and called out, “I’ve still got my pen”.  She must have been on one of our training programmes. So we stopped and asked her about the impact of the training on her life. 

In some small way we leave knowing that we have helped release a little of the potential of a few thousand people and set up a team here that will go on and reach many more thousands.

 - TW

CREATING something new

The struggle to CREATE something new

Since being in this glorious country of South Africa, I’ve tried to nudge myself towards drawing more regularly, not just carting unused chalks and pencils around in my suitcase, which is of no use to anyone.

I’ve been asking myself recently, “So, what’s the problem girl? Why aren’t you drawing every day, like someone who is keen to improve and also values the creative process that brings balance and perspective into daily life?”

…”What’s holding you back?”

And it got me thinking about why any ‘creative act’ seems so hard and why we often shy away from

–       - Having a go at something new

–       - Working at improving a skill

–       - Allowing ourselves to trust our creative instincts

–       - Making time to create, just for the sheer delight of it

…And most of all, being willing to feel the pain and struggle that goes with creative activities and push through to that end place.

Last week I decided to try and capture my raw thoughts and reactions as I tried to draw. So, here it is, it’s not pretty…. it’s just my uncensored notes, as I literally battled to create something now.

 

“I don’t know where to start on this paper.

I don’t know where I’m going….I have no plan…!!

I see what’s in front of me... I see the mountains, but it’s all confusion…I can’t find my brain

I feel like a toddler, knowing that they want to walk, but having no clue how to start

But I start…the marks are ridiculous they make no sense. They are lies compared to what I’m seeing.

I don’t know how to interpret what I’m seeing; I’m out of my depth completely.

It feels uncomfortable.

It feels impossibly hard. My brain says, “You can’t do this” (Loudly)

I make many more marks…they all look ridiculous.

I feel doubt. I fear disappointment and failure. “What if it gives me no pleasure and I end up feeling frustrated and disappointed with my efforts”

“What if I can’t find a way to access my creative, right-brain? I know I can’t do this unless I find my way there…to that mystical, other space inside myself”

I’m living now with chaos on the page – why am I bothering? It’s not working!

I must find a connection with these outrageously, awesome mountains.

I’m searching for the right marks that will tell a story, create a drama and force an emotion in me.

I’m on an adventure to find a million marks that will work together to tell a story.

But I want it to be easy…..I stab at the paper, making unintelligent marks…

“No” I shout, you can’t cheat, there are no short cuts…you must draw from your deep creative brain… you must find your way there.

"Be intelligent, there is no other way”

“Stick with the NOT KNOWING…make every mark intelligent and intense, but also unimportant and lost in the whole”

I want it to be easier than this. I want it to 'just happen' magically on the page. There must be an easier way (but I know there isn’t)

I hear a voice saying…

"Don’t be afraid to create a bit of random madness and mess. 

Feel the flow. 

Let anger be a potent emotion in the struggle. 

Fight with your creation and..

Let yourself escape onto the page”

-JB

“The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aims too high and falling short, but in setting our aims too low

…. A man/woman paints with his brain and not with his hands”

– Michelangelo

House of Hope

View from our Paarl home

This morning I was sitting outside our house in Paarl, drinking tea and silently absorbing the mystical stillness of the S.African autumn (like a warm spring morning in the UK). In the distance strings of whispy clouds were flirting with the audacious mountains; giants that that are not easily 'messed' with. 

I was lost in a plethora of fuggy thoughts - mind darting around like one does when not really fully awake.

Images from internet reports and film footage of the catastrophic earthquake disaster in Nepal strobed across my mind and I wondered what the hell it was like to be there...in Kathmandu or Pokhara...'hell' I guess. 

Then my mind lurched to Tegan, living and working at a primary school in Pokhara. My niece wrote and shared so brilliantly and vividly how terrible the situation was in the city. Pokhara and Kathmandu were about the same distance from the epicentre of the 33 earthquakes. She's been sleeping under a table with a friend by her door for days. And she watched in her state of shock as endless streams of traumatised and wounded people flocked into the already needy city. She told us that dead bodies littered the streets and there was no system for burning-burials or a process for bringing dignity to the end of these precious lives. 

My heart did summersaults of anguish.

....and then my head veered off and started thinking about our time in one of the Townships this week. Lennox, our head of EL here in S.Africa took us to visit a woman he had recently heard about who was looking after abandoned children. We went to visit Wendy who runs The House of Hope. Singlehandedly she set up and continues to run a home for children who have either been abandoned or have sort refuge with her. 

Wendy has taken 9 boys into her care and she also looks after her deaf and dumb teenage daughter. Every evening she finds a way to feed 67 children who flock to her home from the surrounding streets for something to fill their empty bellies and to escape abusive adults and cruel behaviour and sexual abuse. 

The Township is a place that thrives on violence and fear. Wendy unfortunately lives in the 'wrong' part of the informal settlement; the wrong side of the road, in an area deemed to be illegal. She had no proper sanitation, running water and no electricity. 

At night the dark is as black as pitch. Chronic boozing, drug taking (the raw kind...Tic and vile substances that corrode your innards) and sexually abhorrent acts are the perpetual pastime of those living in Mbekweni. Over the past few weeks riots and violence had hotted up - we saw piles of burnt rubbish, boulders, glass, trashed walls, debris and tyres where mobs had tried to set fire to the road (we could hardly pass in our car). It was vile.  

Wendy and her boys

Wendy has no supporters and no financial backing.... don't ask me...I don't know how she does this amazing work, but she finds a way. Neighbours break into her home, steal her meagre belongings and slander what she's doing..., but she still carries on. Her cardboard walls have massive gaps in them, the floods wash through her home, the children get sick from the cold...but she still carries on! 

And I'm left harrowed and humbled...yes, so deeply humbled. 

We left her home after an hour or so, heartbroken but in awe of this woman of profound courage. It was impossible not to be deeply impacted by her agonisingly tough situation and the gutsy wisdom that came from her mouth. Against all the odds she is shining a light in the inky darkness of Hell itself. 

We won't return because it will be very unsafe for her to be seen with us again. 

The children and their Subbuteo football game with rocks and one pingpong ball

This afternoon, I read again those word from the bible: 

"Learn to do good; seek justice

Correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow's cause" - Isaiah 1:17

...and with tears I resolved that, come what may I’d make these words my inner compass and driving passion. 

- JB

Tracing the Thread....

It’s our first Sunday back in South Africa after a short break in the UK. I guess Sunday is a good day for confessions. I confess. I own up. It’s true. A year ago I downloaded Kindle on to the ipad and…..well, I’ve used it a lot. Living out of a suitcase for so long forces the issue to be honest.

So what am I reading at the moment? And what is helping me and what isn’t? Steve Miles put me onto Words To Live By (Easwaran) last week and Jane & I have loved the breadth, simplicity and depth of these paragraph-a-day quotes and insights.

“We don’t have to say to Joy, ‘Excuse me, will you please come to my house’…when we seek a higher goal for the welfare of others Joy will come and put her suitcase down and say ‘I am going to be here, whether you like it or not’ “

The Intangibles Of Leadership (Davis) has so far taken me through discussions on Wisdom, Will, Emotional Maturity and next will be Integrity, a subject I have wrestled with deeply over the past few years. I guess what I am doing even as I write about books I am reading is part of the synthesizing and the getting of wisdom.

The Power Of Now (Tolle). Finally, after years of recommendation I have started this book. The fullness of my potential is layered out by years of my ego-self. Tolle had a revelation of his potential that for most of us would take a lifetime, but what it does is give him a clear vision of our potential, what is possible, to call  and steer others to.

Creative Schools (Robinson) We love this guy and we are especially awake to the issues of education with the development of our own schools programme Lead Now.  We started reading this this morning as it was only published this week.  What does he believe in?

-      -  the value of the individual

-      -  the right to self determination

-       - our potential to evolve and live a fulfilled life

-      -  the importance of civic responsibility and respect for others.

So what is the purpose of education?

-       - to enable students to understand the world around them

-      -  to understand the talents within them

-       - to be fulfilled individuals

-       - to be active, compassionate citizens

“To understand the world around them”…what a creative approach to the curriculum and what a healthy frame to present to pupils at the start of each lesson – “hey pupil, this lesson is here to add to your understanding of how the world you are growing up in, works".

 Revolution (Russell Brand). This is a much longer book than we expected, but we are constantly surprised by him in wonderful ways. It remains for us an intelligent, funny and movingly honest journey (Don’t judge this man by what you read in the papers. Please!)

The Locust Effect (Haugen) remains for me the most important book to be published in the past 12 months (Al Gore’s book The Future got my vote the year before).  This has been so challenging to read. So painful at times, we could only read small chunks. But he is writing about where we live and work each day – the lives of the most poor and challenged people. This book has definitely shaped my thinking more than any other about what we do each day in our work and has focused my thinking about the role of violence and security in the world of the poor. It has pushed me back to my old friends Amarta Sen, Tim Jackson and Martha Nussbaum on security being one of the major planks of human flourishing.

Overrated (Cho) “Are we more in love with the idea of making a difference, than actually doing something to make a difference?”  This says it all really, doesn’t it? We keep on coming back to this question for ourselves.  Do we talk a better game than the one we actually play?

Malcolm Guite’s books Word In The Wilderness & The Singing Bowl unexpectedly, via the late Kate Gross and Late Fragments, led us through Lent to actually having coffee with Malcolm in Cambridge exactly two weeks ago. 

The Clapham Sect (Tomkins) has been such an enriching journey. We all know of Wilberforce but not of the 3 generations of amazing philanthropists that surrounded him.  Wilberforce’s commitment to social change over decades of patience just never fails to inspire and challenge me about what is worth fighting for, is worth a life times work.  This book came to me from a talk I heard where a man asked the question ‘how much do you need to actually live on?..…then give away the rest’.  This was exactly how the Clapham Sect lived.

Architects Of Poverty (Mbeki). The late Mbeki’s son challenges the historic roots of poverty in Africa. The extractive drive of the colonials was adopted by the new post colonial African leaders. The Brits filled their pockets from Africa’s riches and now the new leaders are doing the same. You reap what you sow. It’s a more personal perspective on a read two years ago of Why Nations Fail.

Mans Search For Meaning (Frankl). I came back to this book last month because I was reignited to follow through the thought about Frankl’s (who survived Auschwitz) insight that the last human dignity is mans ability to choose what he believes about him/herself. When all is stripped away (as it was for Frankl), we still have our own thoughts, we alone can create meaning. No one can take that from us.

In a previous blog I talked about my reading around the Quakers so I wont go into that again here. There are other books I’ve started and have not yet finished – Pioneering the Possible (Elsworthy), In Gods Hands (Tutu), One Taste (Wilber), A Path Appears (Kristoff), Reconcile (Lederach), Coherence  (Watkins)

So what do I see as I reflect on all of this reading?

- A hunger for new thoughts, new perspectives.  

- People with big hearts and potential to change a bit of the world, matched by their need to grow internally.

 

Reading is feeding, nourishing heart mind soul and spirit.

Reading is a journey following a scent, hints laid down like tracks in a forest, not sure where they are going, but the scent has a life of its own. It calls me. It is like the river flowing, cutting its own course. Reading is participating in a journey that is nourishing, illuminating, enriching and yet unknown. But that’s ok. You can trust each book… it calls you through.

Finishing a book is unimportant. Being nourished, keeping the food fresh and alive, not stale, is what matters. A book is just part of the thread – large or small – that I can complete or return to when I need it and my soul instinctively knows when to go back and recover an old passage, discover a new passage in an old book, or simply reach out and reach forwards through a new book – undeterred by whether that book will help or not. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. Park it. It may return another day when its time is right – or it may not.

What is important is to stay in the river, stay in the flow of the reading, stay inspiring, breathing in fresh air, thinking new thoughts, having new insights, new horizons, new challenges and stretch – or just go back for reminding and refreshing of some old words that need hearing in a new way, or just old words, like comforting old socks, warm, familiar, allowing me to recalibrate before moving on.

 - TW